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The Only Prescription is More Twitter

If there was a field of wild flowers atop a grassy hill on which Twitter could run, in slow motion, with open arms toward a similarly open-armed, slow-motion running passionate lover, that lover would be me.

I've tried to do the middle school guy thing and play it cool. But this is officially my love note to Twitter (that I will have my best friend deliver for me). *Blush*

I sort of admitted in a recent tweet that steals a hysterical phrase from a Saturday Night Live skit--th one in which Christopher Walken wants more cow bell.

 

For all you new and emerging Twitter fans, here are three great tools to help you get the most of your Twitter experience.

TwiTip - a blog on all things Twitter, helping you know what to do and what NOT to do. TwiTip comes from Darren Rowse (@ProBlogger) from ProBlogger Blog Tips.

Tweet Adder - a "set it and forget it" tool that can do techy work for you, so you just have to write fun micro messages.

Featured Users - an easy way to get yourself out there in the Twitter community. Great idea for bloggers and website owners. Very ideal for anyone who is branding themselves (and who isn't?) or a business.

Even though there is advice out there, have fun with the trial-and-error nature of new tools like Twitter. Just call the first year your beta version. And remember to follow me @tweric!

Oh, and I've written about it here and here, but once again, the best book out about Twitter is Twitterville by Shel Israel. If you read one book about social media, global communities and Twitter, read Twitterville.

14 Bus Reflections v3

On the first night of class, Composition I, the unsuspecting students of @tweric (AKA @compscholar) discovered that they would have to sign-up on Twitter.

 I made it an assignment worth 100 points.

 The students had to create a Twitter account and follow @compscholar to get an A. Three of the 24 already were tweeters, and they fumbled for their devices and followed me immediately.

 A couple others signed up during class, and one even instinctively began to "live tweet" our comp class. Nothing juicy, but these kids these days...give them smart phones and laptops and show them Twitter...they just go at it like it's in our DNA.

 There were some skeptics. A few grumbles. The smart-assiest signed-up as @forced2join (my personal favorite). Expecting some reluctance, I led off class with the riveting story of James Buck, whose one word tweet "arrested" inspired Shel Israel's new book Twitterville.

 The James Buck story, arrested in Mahalla, Egypt, appears in the introduction to Twitterville, which just hit the shelves, and is the best book about Twitter and global communities to date.

 As I ride the 14 bus into downtown Minneapolis, and as I remote blog easily through Posterous, I'm giddy with curiosity about how my students will interact with Twitter. And I am amazed that connecting worldwide is seconds away, which means I have no idea what I might be doing today.

 Eric Matas
Contributing Editor, Kidundated!

Posted via email from Eric's Preposterous

I am the Mayor!

I wouldn't say that I'm an early adopter, but I am an earlier adopter than most.

I got going on foursquare, which is pretty fun because there is competition involved. The main competition is to visit the same place--restaurant, bar, coffee shop, store--so that you become the mayor of that location.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Eric's posterous

I've been battling with Kevin N to be the mayor of the Barnes & Noble in downtown Minneapolis. We've stolen the prestigious title from each other a few times now, and even exchanged smack-talking tweets about this esteemed mayorship. Even so, Kevin and I both agree that when we, as mayor, walk around our Barnes & Noble, we are surprisingly ignored.

The businesses of the world need to wake-up and pay attention. Mayors should get special chairs, elevated service and hearty discounts. At minimum!

Most techy, early adopter types would probably argue that the real news with foursquare these days is that they raised 1.3 million dollars, enough to navigate from playfoursquare.com to foursquare.com. But that's not the real news. Mayorship is.

I hereby announce that I am the mayor of my family room.

Yes, I earned the mayorship of my family room not by checking-in to foursquare from my incredibly smart phone but by kicking ass and taking names. Here are the names: Alex, Aiden, Brooklyn and Kyan. My kids.

It started simply enough. Identical twins Alex and Aiden started to wrestle with me, jumping on my back and drooling ferociously. When the big kids saw that I was man-handling the twins, they abandoned their precious TV to join the ruckus. But even with four kids, ranging from identical 26 pounds to as much as 51 pounds, draped all over me, I was able to emerge the champion and therefore mayor of the family room.

Foursquare might not acknowledge my title, but I welcome them any time (Dennis Crowley?) to visit me in the family room, after which time they will know, they will feel, that I am mayor. For now, I just need to order a decree to get the room cleaned up. Messy.

Eric Matas Minneapolis, MN	Mobile: 612-385-7510 ericmatas@hotmail.com
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Hi! My Name Is

My sweet, lovely wife has a wicked sense of humor. She can seem so innocent while writing scathing satire.

That’s so hot.

She just posted a blog at Everyday is 2sday. The post shows a name tag—you know the Hi! My name is ones—and an added brief bio sticker.

See, my wife, Betsey (her name is), has four kids and one more in her belly. I do too. Except for the in my belly part.

Now, we’re no Octo-Mom, Nadya Suleman (her name is), but we still get a healthy dose of judgment aimed our way. I guess I never knew that having more than two or three kids was sort of like leprosy. Only worse because we did it to ourselves! Self-inflicted leprosy! Who would do it?

So Betsey’s clever little blog inspired me. If she can add to her name tag and stick it to all the judgers out there, then I want to make a name tag—with brief bio—too. In fact, I want everyone to make one. So I will attach a PowerPoint file to the bottom of this blog post so you can easily create yours in four easy steps:

1. Open the PowerPoint file.
2. Type in the name field and brief bio field
3. Right click and save as a picture (.png works great).
4. Upload to your blog or to Facebook.

Then, just comment here and paste the link to your name tag meme. Here’s mine:

I can’t wait to see some more.  Who are you?   (Click to: Download 09 Template Hi My Name Is)

Imagination is more important than knowledge. ~Albert Einstein

Posted via email from Eric's posterous

Screenr is Awesome

Screenr makes grabbing a screen and turning it into a tutorial very easy.

I use screen capturing tools all the time in my work (developing elearning). The tools typically involve launching bulky programs, going through many steps (record, add sound, edit), and then publishing.

Screenr streamlines the process so that you can truly create on demand videos.

I've wanted to create a simple, easy to make tutorial for branding a blog or website with a favicon. I had some trouble myself because I did not realize Internet Explorer only recognized .ICO files. I didn't even know what an .ICO file was.

After I figured it out, a friend asked my advice on buying software to create .ICO files for a favicon. But, there is no need to buy software! In this web 2.0 world, people are out there helping. So, with Screenr, I have already quickly and easily made the video that should help people make images, find the converter website, and create an .ICO file for their blog or website.

Once I created the video, I published it to YouTube and then copied the code to embed it here (I am sorry the sound is low; I was excited to try it and made it in a location that required me to talk very low):

Screenr is, of course, streamlined to Twitter so you can tweet about your new videos immediately. (I mean, why wait?) So, what do you think about Screenr? And when will you make your first video?

The Hero of Web 2.0

This is a tribute to a stranger. But, things have changed quite a bit, and truly "friend" and "stranger" mean different things these days...the days of Web 2.0!

The Inspiration

I just saw a post at SocialMedian.com about Robert Scoble.

The news is that Scoble--well known for his blog "Scobleizer"--is leaving his current job. I never knew he had a job, but I know a little about his blog and him. If you are into social media, video, blogging and such, you probably know who he is.

I am quietly a fan. So, I commented on the SocialMedian post:

"I love that guy. Never met him, but have seen and heard him on videos. He's like the objective correlative of web 2.0 for me. Especially with that tripod and camera. The super hero aspect: "Fearlessly shooting video anywhere he goes -- it's Super Scoble -- able to stream megabytes while tweeting, able to transport digitally to be on the scene at CES, at Google, or anywhere geeks are triumphing!

Ok, that's enough. No offense intended -- I truly admire the guy. And the triumphing geeks. Well some of them."

I follow him on Twitter and FriendFeed, but I don't know Scoble. But then one day I got a twitter email. It said _Scobleizer_ was following me! I felt proud. Yes -- the mighty Scobleizer was following me on Twitter. I win!

Well, not so.

The Impostor

I bounded forth to Twitter so I could send him a note of thanks. But @_scobleizer_ (with the underscores) was a fake.

Impostor!

Curse you impostor, who made my hopes and dreams rise, only to be crushed. Woe is me.

The Interception

Until *horns blaring* the real Robert Scoble did in fact follow me on Twitter!  I wanna think I earned it. Either from good tweets or pity. Well, one good tweet anyway. With pity in it.

After the impostor both thrilled me and slammed me, I tweeted about the fake Scoble and how Twitter SWAT had shut him down (or her). I also included a sad little bit at the end (see Twitter screen shot).

That was lunch time on January 23rd. By the end of the day, the real Robert Scoble was following me.

I'm no news breaker in the tech world, but I like to think that Scoble checks my twitter feed every morning as he gets ready to take on another day.

  
I guess that's my brush with social media fame. What's yours? Oh and by the way, here's the email about the real Scoble following me. Yes, I kept it!

                    

Web 3.0 The Backlash

Web 3.0 could be all about who you follow. Who do you follow on Twitter? Who do you follow on FriendFeed? Are you getting all the latest tweets and posts? Hurry, hurry, because there's a brand new application starting up tomorrow and you'll need to know who to follow there too. I just hope it's not a clique fest (click pun, get it?).

*Sigh*

Erick Schonfeld wrote a piece hoping that web 3.0 would "be about reducing the noise," referring to his overload of tweets and posts to wade through. I too hope the innovators will streamline many people's web 2.0 reality: 40 user names  passwords, 30 video sites, 10 networking must-views...and 5 new ones tomorrow. There needs to be a backlash of some sort.

Today I read about the ridiculous act of spitting in Michael Arrington's face. I certainly can't say for sure what that was about because the *ahem* gentleman who spit hurried off so that his point, if there was one, will not even be known. (Perhaps he'll blog about it from his cowardly lair.) But it's easy enough to to sense a backlash in the act. I don't know too much about Arrington or Tech Crunch, but I read Tech Crunchand have already referenced one article in this blog (Schonfeld's). I do know enough to see influence when I see it--and Arrington has that. Arrington is web 2.0.

Another phenomenon of web 2.0 is a rather unattractive part of people's profiles. Mine included. Take FriendFeed for example. Each profile includes feeds from You Tube, Seesmic, Twitter, blogs, and more. It ends up looking like a Cub Scout shirt full of merit badges. Sure, I got kicked out of Cub Scouts, so that might have something to do with my current rant.

Anyway. Backlash. Revolt. Fix. Improve. Make it easier for Eric. And try to fix it before I even realize it's broken. Thank you.

The Who—How Routine

Social media and networking require a lot of work. Mike Fruchter writes lucidly about what social media is (and isn’t) in a splendid article that includes a fun video. Fruchter also has a blog posting that details 40—yes 40—elements to getting started in social media. Both are must reads.

But, for the busy, I thought I would add a few shorter tips.

The first I’m calling the Who—How Routine. It’s a simple way to get going in the morning thinking about what you will accomplish today regarding your presence online, your social media connections, your brand development on the web. As you put on your shoes (assuming two here), think who? for one and how? for the other.

Who—are you going to contact today? Think of a person. Yes one. Even though you might amass 4 billion friends on Facebook and 20 million followers on Twitter, think about just one person to make contact with today. Keep in mind that social media works best when you are a real person, and that means you will have to get a little more intimate, from time to time, than posting a few words that get scattered to your legions of fans.

How—are you going to reach out to that person? If you are like me, you are chock full of user names and passwords for your various accounts for your internet connections: LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Seesmic, You Tube, SocialMedian, and more. That one person you are going to connect with today might use many too. Be a little creative and choose wisely—something to entertain? To amuse? To enlighten? To inform? As a former writing teacher, I used to call this your purpose. Basically, the level of formality might help you choose a media: You Tube for amusement, perhaps?

As an example, when I thought who today, I thought of Louis Gray. When I thought how, I went with good old email—found on his website. I had a formal question for him, so I didn’t want to use Twitter or any other tool that might detract from my serious question.

Anywho, I did the Who—How Routine and accomplished my mission. It’s simple, quick and easy. When you have more time, read Fruchter’s two articles. And don’t confuse Who—How with hoo-haa…that’s something else.